Manual/Multiplayer
See also: Servers To start a multiplayer game (to fight against human players), choose "Multiplayer" from main menù. You will see the integrated server browser. Press "refresh" button to update the server list. Press "spacebar" on your keyboard to stop the refresh (you cannot change options during refresh). The table will show you the server's name, map in use, number of players connected/allowed, game mode in use, IPv4/IPv6 and PING. "Ping" represents the lag time (latency), in ms. Think it is the time that passes from when you push a button and when the server knows you did. If this value is lower, it is better. For best performances, you should not use other bandwidth consuming applications (for example, peer to peer applications) when playing an online game. Options You can find various options in the upper section of the screen: * Servers: you can search for servers over Internet, or inside your LAN (Local Area Connection) or from your Favorite list. * Game Type: you can show "all" kinds of game types] (including some mod-specific gametypes), or filter for a particular game type. * Sort By: it allows you so change the order of the list. Usually it is by Ping, since having lower ping is better. * Show Full: if enabled, shows also "full" servers (for example 8/8 players slots already used). You will not be able to connect there until someone quits from that server. * Show Empy: if enabled, shows also servers with no players (for example 0/8). * Only humans: if enabled, hides "bots" from the count of players (you could notice, for example, a 2/8 change into 0/8, or a 4/8 change into 2/8 if there were two bots on that server) * Hide private: if enables, hides "private" servers, that require a password to connect to. Buttons You can find various buttons in the lower section of the screen: * Back: return to main menù * Specify: you can specify a particular server address and port (default port is 27960), if you know them (like using \connect command form command console) * Refresh: update server list. You can stop update before it finishes by pressing spacebar. * Create: starts a game as a server. * Fight: connects to the server selected from the list. Create If you select to create a game, your machine will be a server, and other players will be able to join your game. You can find this useful when playing with your friends over LAN (playing on a server inside a Local Area Network usually permits lower pings than playing over the internet). If you are the server, your ping will be 0. You will need to select the "game mode" (a.k.a. "game type".... you will also be able to change it later with \g_gametype command) and the map (you can change it later with \map command), then click "next". Then, you can open a "slot" for each player allowed to join the game: * Human: this is you. * Open: this slot is available if someone wants to connect to your server. * Bot: a bot will be there. So you will not be completely alone, waiting for other players to connect. You can also set slots as "open" and add or remove bots later, from the game. * ....: this slot is closed and no one will be able to use it. There are some options, like "capture limit" and "time limit" (when a match will end); "pure server" (usually you should enable it, it does not allow to connect who has non-standard pk3 files, for security reasons); "Instantgib" (all the players will have only the railgun and a single hit will kill a player); "All rockets" (all the players will have only the rocket launcher); Physics (in the original Q3A, player physics changes slightly depending on the players' frame-rate: in OpenArena this has been fixed, but if you want you can select to follow the original behaviour); Hostname (you can choose a name for your server). When you are ready, click "fight". If you want your friends to join your server, please check your IP address ("internal" if you are playing within a LAN, and "external" if you want to play over the Internet. For example, you can go here to know your external IP address.) and tell it to your friends. You may need to setup your firewall to allow incoming traffic on UDP port 27960, and/or your router to foward (search for "port forwarding" or "virtual server" options in your router configuration) that port from your external address to your internal IP. Hints * When you are playing online on another server, you can't change map (or other parameters, like g_gametype or fraglimit) like on your server, but you could (if the server allows it) be able to "call a vote" about it and other players will be able to vote: if the vote passes, the command will be executed. For example, you can use \callvote map xxx to change map or \callvote kick yyy to force disconnection of an ill-mannered player. * It is possible to start a server game as "dedicated server": in this case the local machine will not use the graphical system and you will not be able to play directly from that instance of the game. It is useful if you want to set up a permanent OpenArena server. For more info about dedicated server mode, please read Servers page. * Remember that your firewall settings could prevent other players from join your server, or even prevent you from join other servers. If you have problems, check its settings (a firewall could be integrated in your operating system, or could be a third-party software, or could be managed by a network router or by a proper server). Standard port for OpenArena is 27960 (UDP), but sometimes it may be different. External server browsers We described the integrated server browser, above. But you can also find online OpenArena servers from some web pages or from external server browser programs. They could include more informations and more functions than the integrated server browser (for example, Qtracker shows you also the name of the mod in use on the server). Please read Servers page for more info and Servers#Tools section for a list of external server browsers that support OpenArena. See also * Servers * Manual